The William Blakes

The Next Arcade Fire?

The William Blakes: Wayne Coyne

The band takes that “no fear” approach to everything it does, an extension of the recording process applied to both its 2008 debut album, Wayne Coyne, named for the contemporary madman of The Flaming Lips. “We did the album in five days — recorded, mixed and mastered.” In fact, the debut and the follow-up, Dear Unknown Friend were both recorded in the same amount of time — barely a year apart — in an old wooden house in nearby Sweden. “We each brought our own digital studios. I would start a song, go into the next room where Fridolin was starting another, throw the files into the computer and then go back and start another… everybody worked simultaneously on different tracks. We tried to purposely lose control and do whatever came into our minds.”

Regardless of what each member came up with, they agreed never to utter the word “no” to each other. “We call it the genius method,” Leth explains. “Picture you’re in the studio with Quincy Jones, mixing a track, and he turns up the snare drum. You don’t go ‘No, Quincy. The snare drum is too loud.’ You go ‘What is he on to here?’ We just had the idea if we just thought of each other as geniuses, we wouldn’t stop each other.” That ethic is a result of having spent too much time in the past chasing the perfect, preconceived notion of what they should be doing. “Our main ambition was to make a record that would surprise ourselves.”

The William Blakes Live

The response from Danish fans and critics was equally surprising. “We weren’t really planning on playing live. Then we got offers for all these really big gigs.” The first, a large festival show for several thousand people, was actually Leth’s first ever, one he considered a success based solely on the fact he made it to the stage without passing out.

On stage, The William Blakes take the same “no fear” approach, bulking with an eight-piece band, with Leth leading the charge and dueling drummers facing off behind him. “We don’t rehearse that much. We try to leave a lot of room for people to do what they’re best at. No sacred roles. No egos.” It’s a collective, he says, an evolving organism, like Broken Social Scene and Arcade Fire. But, by referencing other bands, he’s only explaining what inspires them, he cautions — Talking Heads, Tears for Fears, Springsteen, Neil Young, Brian Eno. It’s a wide net, he explains. “For the second album, I remember Frederik stated that his entire goal was to make 10 different version of ‘Wanna Be Startin’ Something’ by Michael Jackson. We have these crazy goals when we start recording. They all fail, but I think that’s a plus… we fail to hit a target, and instead hit something we’re not quite sure of.”

AM's Canadian readers can catch the William Blakes live on the following dates: